It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)

Friday, August 04, 2006

Terrorist Government

Comments made on my article Hezbollah Are Not Terorrists claim that no government or state would allow a political organization to be armed and independent of the state. Of course that is true, however the Lebanese Government recognizes Hezbollah as its National Resistance.

And of course there is another state in the neighbourhood that has a history of arising from terrorism.

On July 22, 1946, the King David Hotel was blown up by Jewish terrorists killing 91 and injuring 45 - mostly British and Arabs. The attack was ordered by the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary terrorist organization which was the precursor to the IDF. The actual attack was caried out by the group Irgun under the leadership of Menachem Begin, later the Prime Minister of Isreal.

1 comment:

I apologize ahead of time for teh long comment, but i thought you might find it interesting, regardint the very question of who is a terrorist: from here: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/28/1440244

And it's worthwhile noticing, by the way, that what some people call the disproportionality of the Israeli reaction -- if I could, I have a piece of paper here I would like to quote from, if I may, because this discussion comes up so many times. In 1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, they asked us -- this is a Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism; I was the Deputy Director of the working group -- they asked us to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government. We produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities.

After the task force concluded its work, Congress got into it, and you can google into U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2331, and read the U.S. definition of terrorism. And one of them in here says -- one of the terms, "international terrorism," means "activities that," I quote, "appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping."

Yes, well, certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. Israel is another. And so, the terrorist, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. And I think it's useful for people who discuss that phrase to remember that Israel was founded by terrorist organizations and terrorist leaders, Menachem Begin, who became statesmen and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And Nasrallah may not be the same kind of guy, but his intentions are the same. He wants to free his country from domination by another.

and Juan cole also has a very nice discussion on this also:http://www.juancole.com/2006/07/what-is-hizbullah-western-and-israeli.html